New computer advice please *see page 6 now!*

At the moment, my computer is really slow and it is pretty old (I bought it in 2001 for university) My CD-ROM and DVD-ROM are dead as they was "flashed" a long time ago after a friend tried to solve my DVD-ROM problems. My computer have to boot up via my XP CD and my computer mouse is being bitchy at the moment.

I am considering of getting a new computer, but I am not too keen about buying different hardware and putting it together myself as I got no experience with that. I am looking for a decent computer that is able to cope with video and photo editing. My budget is about £350 but I can stretch up to £450.

I got no idea with certain graphic cards or which motherboard but I want a computer that is able to cope with different programs running at the same time and a good sized hard drive for my video clips and photos.

Any recommendations? Thank you.

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Did your birth certificate come with an apology letter from Durex?



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 03/21/2010 01:20AM by bigears.

No gaming needed? It will help no end if not.

If a monitor isn't needed, something from Dell will be perfect. I'm thinking of one of the new Studio desktops at the moment, which should just about fit in your budget.

Oh yeah. I would like to include gaming as well as I regularly play GP3 (till my CD-ROM died) and I have been unable to reinstall GPL since then.

Also I will have a go with NR2003 and RFactor so I would like a computer that is able to cope with that too.

I don't mind having a new monitor though.

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Did your birth certificate come with an apology letter from Durex?

My pc recently had an "accident" down my stairs, so with the insurance money i bought myself a DELL inspiron 531 straight from the dell website.

system specs:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual core Processor 5000+ (2.60GHz, 89W)
4Gb Ram
320Gb Hardrive
DVD / RW 16X
19 in 1 card reader and the usual million usb points
Windows Vista Home premium
Upgraded the Psu aswell (can't remember what from or too)

From DELL £333.00 inc VAT and delivery

ordered tuesday night arrived thursday morning

It came with some rubbish 128mb ATi graphics card which i ripped out the day it arrived, uninstalled all the driver software for it, went down to Pc world (i know but hadn't expected it to arrive so quickly and i'm too impatient to order one online and wait), bought an NVidia 9600GT cost me £145 threw that in, and had it working within an hour.


I used to play a lot of GP3, but after getting this all up and running, downloaded rFactor and love it. Thats running flat out with the graphics.


It was made cheaper by not needing a monitor, or speakers as i had these already, the system came with a nice new keyboard and mouse as standard.


so all in for £478.00

"Racing is LIFE. Anything before or after is just waiting"
Steve McQueen.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/20/2008 10:45PM by bazza_racer.

bigears Wrote:
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> Oh yeah. I would like to include gaming as well as
> I regularly play GP3 (till my CD-ROM died) and I
> have been unable to reinstall GPL since then.
>
> Also I will have a go with NR2003 and RFactor so I
> would like a computer that is able to cope with
> that too.
>
> I don't mind having a new monitor though.

£450 for a gaming capable machine with monitor will be a challenge. :P

I'll see what I can come up with tomorrow. Might be a case of something like a Dell (they tend to be cheaper at the lower end) and then adding your own card, which may invalidate the warranty, but I'll try and avoid that.

I am happy to leave out the monitor if you must find something decent.

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Did your birth certificate come with an apology letter from Durex?

i went packard bell and then added my own card, cost around £500 in total, with no monitor

Sim

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All Hail The New York Giants - Winners of Superbowl XXI, XXV and XLII!

"I'd love to know what goes on in that crazy head of yours sometimes, Sim..." - Locke Cole

Are they any good?

[www.zi-mm.co.uk]

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Did your birth certificate come with an apology letter from Durex?

I'll not be speccing no Packard Bell. :P They'll be going the direction of Tiny the way things are going. It's a name quickly disappearing, despite being one of the major players for a good couple of decades, they've @#$%& things up and desperately need to pull their fingers out. Acer's just bought them (gives you an indication of how their fortunes have fallen), so we'll see how things work from now. It may be a simple company purchase, keeping them as separate entities and trying to rescue the brand, or they could just be taking on the PB employees and facilities, and using them under the Acer brand (more likely, as it's far bigger than PB now).

The number of desktop PC manufacturers who are in it for the long term you can count on a few fingers. Dell (with Alienware, who they own), HP, Lenovo, IBM, Toshiba, Sony (their VAIO brand), Acer and if they don't @#$%& up their Eee PC brand (which they're trying to do) ASUS. As long as PC World are around, they'll offer something in store too, though how long their Advent brand survives I don't know. I'm staggered they're still persevering with it to be honest, as they've been @#$%& atrocious since inception.

There's no profit in the business any more unless you're a big OEM. That's still good for us. OEMs are offering PCs, laptops and netbooks for much less now than in the past, in the face of the global economy, inflation here, and the increased milking of VAT charges that foreign companies are charging. It's bad for the 2 major independent UK makers such as Evesham and Mesh, out of business or in serious financial trouble respectively.

Other than that, you're limited to PC hardware shops who offer pre-built machines at an increased price, though usually of a better standard than the major OEMs. Shops such as Scan.co.uk and Overclockers.co.uk both offer customised pre-built systems, though I doubt any will fall into this price bracket (though I'll have a look). The service you'll get from these shops generally are better than the likes of Dell and HP as you're not stuck talking to a bloke in India who gets stuck at "restart it" if something is wrong. No, you end up talking to a guy in Britain who knows what he's on about to some degree. In that respect, you get what you pay for, but for out-right prices of components, they can't compete with the sheer buying power of the likes of Dell. You end up paying the component price then perhaps 20% more for build and warranty, though what they give you is usually very well put-together.

bigears Wrote:
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> Are they any good?
>
> [www.zi-mm.co.uk]

Never heard of them, but looking at the £279.00 AMD system, they're not bad. If you are considering them though, you'll have to swap out the PSU (it will be made of cheese or something and won't last 10min with half decent graphics card) and add your own graphics card (as they're all crap, integrated ones which are offered). If you're happy doing that, it may well end up the easiest option. A self-build will be better, but if you prefer something that's mainly done for you, this will be as close as you'll get from a quick look around.

First things first. The graphics card is on 'this week only' at Overclockers.co.uk with quite a bit knocked off. Grab it now if you can, as it's applicable to all the options I've come up with.

I've got things together in an Excel spreadsheet here. If you don't have Excel you can get an Excel Viewer from Microsoft.

There are 3 options (in the sheet tabs along the bottom). One AMD-based self build, one Intel-based self build and one Dell pre-built which you'll have to add a graphics card to. Each component in the spreadsheet has a link taking you to that part. Black links are for Scan.co.uk (other than on the Dell sheet, which links to the Dell system). Blue links are for Overclockers.co.uk (the graphics card is stupidly cheap at the moment) and red links are options which can make systems cheaper, though I can't recommend them.

The theory is, building yourself will be of higher quality than buying a pre-built, and you know exactly what's going in it. For instance, I can't guarantee that the graphics card will fit in the Dell system, or that the PSU it has will be sufficient to power it (it should be though). The PSU likely won't have the necessary 6-pin power cable for the graphics card either, so I've added a 2xmolex to 6-pin adapter, so include that when ordering the graphics card if you're getting the Dell system. If you're making your own, the PSUs will have the 6-pin power socket.

If going for the Dell, pick the cheapest Inspiron (£269 at the moment), then go to Customise and change the CPU to the Pentium Dual-Core E2180 and up the RAM to 2GB, which should give you a price of £309 including VAT and delivery at the moment.

There are 3 monitor options, all widescreen. The 19" and 22" I've no experience of, but it's fair to say they'll be fairly cheap and nasty affairs. The 20" is of much higher quality (and the same resolution as the 22", though you do pay more for it. The Dell monitor will include a DVI cable, but many don't include one, so if you go for either the 19" or the 22", add the DVI cable to the order too.

Of the 2 self-builds, I'd personally go for the AMD one, just because I know the motherboard. There's no difference between those 2 systems all considered though. I also know the case and PSU, and can highly recommend one or both of the 2 hard drives (they're bloody quick!). DVD drive is fine too. I've specced XP Home (unless you're on a domain, Pro is pointless), just as that's probably what you're used too, though there are options for Vista Home Premium too. The 64-bit one can be a bit more problematic for some older software, so the safe option is the 32-bit one. 64-bit will become the norm, and is recommended, but that's up to you depending on how safe you want things and how little you want to troubleshoot. If you do go 64-bit Vista though, grab the 4GB of RAM option too.

If you go for the Dell, set it up, switch it on and fill in the stuff (your name and things) when asked. Let it do its things, then uninstall the Intel graphics drivers, switch it off, then add the graphics card, if there's no free 6-pin power lead, find 2 available 4-pin molex plugs and plug them into the adapter and the adapter into the card, plug plug the monitor cable into it, and switch it on, installing the latest drivers (not the ones on the CD) when it comes back up.

As expected, I can't quite get it to the £450 top budget (when adding a monitor) if you're playing games, and I can't find anywhere that will after a quick look.

Your other option is that company you spied last night, but replace the PSU with one I specced and you'll need to add the graphics card. Personally, I wouldn't touch with a barge-pole, but it's your choice.

Feel free to ask anything or if you want one of those builds amending in anyway.

sorry to hijack here bigears ...but :P

my new system is a Q6600 dual core with 3Gb RAM, DVD writer, 500Gb Hard drive, and ,ive just added a HD4850...however, the PSU is a rather shabby 250w, so I obviously need to get that sorted. now, i have a 350W PSU lying about, i beleive its a 'Hercules' (i have no idea if thats decent or not), would it be worth me putting that in, or getting a brand new one altogether (I could probably stretch to around £40)

Sim

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All Hail The New York Giants - Winners of Superbowl XXI, XXV and XLII!

"I'd love to know what goes on in that crazy head of yours sometimes, Sim..." - Locke Cole

Get a new one! Christ! Elcheapo 250W with a quad core and HD4850?! You'll blow the lot!

This is the absolute bare minimum I'd recommend. Get this if at all possible. Can't believe that thing's still going to be honest. :\

/edit: scrap that actually Sim.

Scan have the FSP 700W PSU on Today Only for £27. You have to go through the Today Only page to get it at that price though. It keeps on coming up at stupid discounts.

Dave, if you see this in time and can, get it while it's on offer if you do intend a self-build.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2008 05:38PM by gav.

lmao, it works fine...for now...im just not naive enough to expect it to run rF for 4hours at a time, or last forever

Sim

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All Hail The New York Giants - Winners of Superbowl XXI, XXV and XLII!

"I'd love to know what goes on in that crazy head of yours sometimes, Sim..." - Locke Cole

Check out my edit Sim (and Dave if he happens across this thread today).

w00t cheers Gav, just ordered, be heer on the 25th (so im guessing they mean tuesday :P)

Sim

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All Hail The New York Giants - Winners of Superbowl XXI, XXV and XLII!

"I'd love to know what goes on in that crazy head of yours sometimes, Sim..." - Locke Cole

Dave, if you see this in time and can, get it while it's on offer if you do intend a self-build.

Don't have any money till Friday :P Then I'll be picking up this - [www.dabs.com] My current PCs fine and dandy, just needs this @#$%& PSU replaced.

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theRacingLine.net
SportsCarArchives.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2008 05:59PM by DaveEllis.

DaveEllis Wrote:
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> > Dave, if you see this in time and can, get it
> while it's on offer if you do intend a
> self-build.
>
> Don't have any money till Friday :P Then I'll be
> picking up this -
> [www.dabs.com]
> W&CategorySelectedId=11259&PageMode=1&NavigationKe
> y=11259,50121 My current PCs fine and dandy, just
> needs this @#$%& PSU replaced.


I meant Dave Page.

Sim linked me to this and told me to reply :P

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theRacingLine.net
SportsCarArchives.com

Thats a bloody steal! Though dunno if I need it :S

My current is an Antec 550W NeoHE, and after my upgrade, ill have a Q6600, 2GB RAM, 3 HDDs and a 512mb 9600GT, which should be alright shouldnt it?

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